2 dead as US hit by historic winter storm

NEW YORK -- Two people died from hypothermia in the US state of Louisiana as a historic winter storm sweeping across vast parts of the United States this weekend has brought snow and ice as well as frigid temperatures.

New York City officials also suspect the severe weather might be the cause for the deaths of five people this weekend, local media reported. The victims were found on Saturday in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens.

The storm, fueled by an arctic air mass and stretching from the Central and Southern Plains to the East Coast, began on Friday and will continue until Monday.

Data from PowerOutage.com shows more than 1 million customers are now without power. Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana are seeing the most outages.

Meanwhile, over 30,000 flights have been disrupted nationwide, and 21 states have announced State of Emergency, according to Fox Weather.

Nearly 200 million people are under some type of winter weather alert on the powerful winter storm's 2,300-mile journey across the United States right now, breaking the record for the highest number of US counties simultaneously under a winter storm warning.

In anticipation of the winter storm, US President Donald Trump on Saturday approved a Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration for 10 states.